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Article history: Accurate estimation of tunnel face support pressure is necessary for economical and safe shield tunneling
Received 6 July 2010 in cohesionless soils. This paper presents measurements of tunnel face support pressure and associated
Received in revised form 12 July 2011 soil movements obtained using a transparent soil model that simulates shield tunneling in medium dense
Accepted 1 August 2011
saturated sand. The use of a transparent soil surrogate permits measuring the internal soil deformations
Available online 29 September 2011
within the model soil. Soil deformations associated with various face support pressures are presented for
4 cover-to-diameter (C/D) ratios. Failure is found to be sudden with sand owing into the tunnel leading
Keywords:
to a prismatic wedge in front of the tunnel face and a vertical chimney of soil above. A minimum support
Tunnel
Ground movements
pressure was achieved with support pressures as low as 10 1% of the effective vertical stress at the tun-
Face stability nel axis. The stability of the tunnel face was related to the coefcient of active earth pressure with C/D
Failure mechanisms ratio having a small effect on the magnitude of required pressure at collapse.
Transparent soil 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Digital Image Correlation (DIC) cross-
correlation
Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV)
0886-7798/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tust.2011.08.001
102 M. Ahmed, M. Iskander / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 27 (2012) 101110
rT cDNd rS NS 4
4. Experimental methodology
dows the image before and after each decrement of tunnel pres-
sure are correlated to produce an average particle displacement
vector. Doing this for all interrogation regions produce a vector
map of average particle displacements. The position of the peak
in the correlation plane corresponds directly to the average particle
displacement within the interrogation area investigated. The vec-
tor from the center of the region to the peaks of cross-correlation
function gives the magnitude and direction of the relative move-
ment between two images. An advanced form of DIC which em-
ploys window shifting and window sizing, called Adaptive Cross
Correlation (ACC), has been used (Liu and Iskander, 2004). ACC is
implemented in Flow Manager Software (Dantec, 2001), which is
the software used in this research.
Fig. 4. Application of surface loading. Active collapse of the tunnel is triggered by application of sur-
charge, rS, and self-weight, with the tunnel face pressure rT pro-
viding resistance against failure. Under passive conditions, these
In addition to the tunnel container, the set up also included a roles are reversed, and blow-out of the soil mass in front of the tun-
Cohu 2622 black & white CCD camera, 35 mW Melles Griot laser nel face is caused by the tunnel pressure with resistance being pro-
light source, a line generator lens, a test table, and a PC for image vided by the surcharge and self-weight. In this study, only the
processing (Fig. 5). The camera has a resolution of 640 480 pixels active collapse of the tunnel face is considered in the analysis; be-
and controlled by the PC through a Matrox Meteor 2/4 frame grab- cause the blow-out of the soil in front of the tunnel face is less
ber. A macro-zoom lens with a variable focus length from 18 to likely, thus of less practical interest.
108 mm was mounted on the CCD camera. At the beginning of the experiment, the vertical effective stress
acting on the tunnel was negligible. This assumption is found to be
4.2. Displacement eld measurement using Digital Image Correlation reasonable because of the unit weight of the transparent soil (Sa-
dek et al., 2002) and the size of the model which yields negligible
The interaction between laser light and transparent soils pro- magnitude for the quantity c(C + D/2) = 0.50.9 kN/m2. When the
duces a distinctive speckle pattern. This speckle pattern manifests surcharge, rS = 69 kPa, is applied the vertical effective stress in-
the interaction between the transparent soil matrix, impurities, en- creases and is assumed to be equal to rS. The lateral earth pressure
trapped air, and the laser. Small particle movement will result in follows the increase in vertical effective stress, which would cause
change in the speckle distribution in the plane of measurement. the tunnel face to deform into the tunnel, unless the internal tun-
If the deformation is small, the contrast distribution resulting from nel pressure, rT, was increased to balance the increased stresses
the speckle effect will follow the particle movement. Images cap- from surface pressure. A conservative initial internal tunnel pres-
tured before and after deformation are analyzed using the cross- sure, rT = rS was employed in all experiments, such that rT and
correlation function (DIC) which is a classic pattern recognition rS were increased simultaneously.
technique based on using correlation function to locate the best To illustrate that the methods employed in this study were suc-
matching position of two images and thus predicting movements. cessful in obtaining an initial zero face displacement condition,
Sadek et al. (2003) studied the accuracy of DIC application in trans- vectors of resultant ground movement due to application of sur-
parent soil models. The results indicate that the calculated defor- face pressure, rS, and tunnel pressure, rT, are shown in Fig. 7 for
mation using the developed system has an error on the order of one test. The displacement vectors are generated by DIC analysis
0.1 pixel, which is equivalent to a 0.01 mm for optical settings used of images captured before and after application of tunnel and sur-
in this study. face pressures. As seen by the vectors in Fig. 7, only vertical ground
For displacements measurement using DIC, the camera images movements were encountered due to settlement of the soil prole
are divided into rectangular regions called interrogation areas or as a result to application of a surcharge pressure. No horizontal
interrogation windows (Fig. 6). For each of these interrogation win- movement occurred near the tunnel face.
Tests were conducted by reducing the tunnel pressure rT in
stages until collapse occurred. After each decrement of tunnel
pressure (0.7 kPa), the model was sliced optically using laser light
sheet to illuminate the plane of measurements inside the model
and an image was taken by the CDD camera. Later, these images
were analyzed using Digital Image Correlation to obtain corre-
sponding deformation and strain elds.
Fig. 8. Face support pressure and corresponding face displacements (rV = rS).
ment normalized by tunnel diameter (Fig. 10) for four different C/D ment did not reach the ground surface. In the case of tunnels with
ratios, at Point B. For deeper tunnels (C/D > 4), peak ground defor- C/D < 3, ground movements associated with initial instability of the
mation was localized near the tunnel face, and peak ground move- tunnel face extended to the ground surface. Manifestations of
M. Ahmed, M. Iskander / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 27 (2012) 101110 107
the case of C/D = 1.5 and / = 28, which is lower than the measured 1.5 1.3 4.3 6.9 7.9
angle of friction of SG1. This could have resulted from (1) errors in 2.5 0.4 2 3.5 4.2
3.5 0.2 1.1 2.2 2.7
the theoretical model, (2) experimental error, (3) presence of arch-
4.5 0.1 0.7 1.5 1.9
ing at deeper tunnels, or (4) failure to obey all scaling laws.
108 M. Ahmed, M. Iskander / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 27 (2012) 101110
5.3. Failure mechanisms proposed by Horn (1961), Chambon and Cort (1994), Leca and
Dormieux (1990) and Mollon et al. (2009) (Fig. 13).
After Point B was reached (Fig. 8), further decrease of the sup-
porting pressure led to sudden collapse (Point F) as transparent soil 6. Relationship between tunnel support pressure and ground
tended to slide into the tunnel and the failure envelope propagated deformation
progressively upward.
Contour plots for resultant ground movements associated with The observed behavior can be divided into three stages in rela-
Point F (failure) are shown in Fig. 12 for four different C/D ratios. tion to lateral earth pressure coefcient, ka, as follows:
The movements observed at failure are substantially larger than
those observed at Point B (Fig. 10). Ground movements at the tun- 1. Face Deformation (1 > rT/rV > 0.8ka): Face deformation is dened
nel level corresponding to failure stage transmitted to the surface by displacement, dh, measured at the center of the face, normal-
with shallower tunnels transmitting more movements than deeper ized by tunnel diameter, D. Although support pressure is
ones. The observed movements compare well with the zone of reduced from its original value no movement was observed at
ground movement reported by Chambon and Cort (1994) using the face till rT/rV = 0.17 .01 was reached. During the face
a centrifuge in dry sand, where the zone of post-instability ground deformation stage, very small face deformations were observed
movements formed a chimney in front of the tunnel face that (less than 0.1% of tunnel diameter). The pressure associated
reached the ground surface. The dashed lines in Fig. 12 indicate with triggering the face movement at the end of this stage rep-
the failed zones at the moment of collapse, corresponding to the resents the start of collapse.
contour of ground displacement equal to the tunnel face displace- 2. Face Slip Stage: (0.8ka > rT/rV > 0.5ka): This stage represents
ment at the center line, at Point F. The failed zone is relatively nar- small deformations leading to local face failure. Face displace-
row and reaches approximately 1D above the tunnel crown, when ment at this stage ranged between 0.1% and 1% of tunnel diam-
arching of the soil prevented further deformation. The failed soil eter. In our experiments local failure occurred when rT/
mass outcropped at the ground surface for the C/D = 1.5 case. How- rS = 10 1%, which we average conservatively as 0.1. Our tests
ever, the chimney shape failure did not outcrop at the ground sur- results compare favorably to centrifuge model tests by Cham-
face for tests with C/D > 2. The observed failure zone is consistent bon and Cort (1994) and Oblozinsky and Kuwano (2006)
with the chimney and wedge combination failure mechanisms (Fig. 11) and falls between the upper bound and lower bound
Cover C 1 Chimney
Chimney
C/D
0
Wedge
D
Prismatic
wedge
-1 0 1 2 3
Diameter D
Normalized distance from tunnel face (y/D)
s s
2
C
C
T
D D T
Multi-block failure mechanism by Mollon et.al., (2009) Two-block failure mechanism by Leca and Dormieux (1990)
Fig. 13. Comparison between theoretical failure mechanisms and failure observed in transparent soil.
solutions proposed by Leca and Dormieux (1990). This nding Transparent soil used in these model tests has a smaller unit
also conrms Chambon and Cort (1994) and Leca and Dormi- weight than natural soils, but has a similar stress-strain behavior.
eux (1990) conclusion that the upper bound solutions are closer The discrepancy in unit weight may affect the scaling of stress
to the actual pressures at failure than the lower bound values, based problems such as scaling of liner deformations or soil rein-
and can provide a reasonable estimate of critical tunnel face forcement, to natural soils. For deformational problems such as
pressures (rTC). Theoretically, the upper-bound theorem (kine- the ones presented here, it is believed that the role of geometry
matical approach) provides a critical (unsafe) estimate of the is more signicant than that of self-weight, but small differences
tunnel support pressure required to maintain stability. in failure geometry may occur due to the discrepancy in unit
Collapse was triggered, by surface loading unlike Chambon weight. At any rate a surcharge has been used in lieu of the self
and Cort (1994) experiments and the assumptions employed weight to minimize the effect of the small unit weight.
in theoretical solutions proposed by Anagnostou and Kovari Model tests performed in this study did not investigate the
(1996) and Leca and Dormieux (1990). This fact does not change effect of gravity and assumed it to be minimal. Therefore, a sur-
signicantly the analysis of the results due to several reasons: face loading (69 kPa) was introduced, by means of air pressure
First, because the comparison was based on the state of stress contained inside a rubber tire, in order to trigger instability
represented by the ratio of the support pressure to the vertical and to create a situation where a measurable pressure is needed
effective stress at the tunnel axis (rT/rV). Second, SG1 has a sim- for stabilizing the face. Such approach is necessary for two rea-
ilar stress-strain behavior to sand. Finally, face collapse resulted sons: First, because the unit weight of silica gel is smaller than
from passive failure due to insufcient support pressure at the natural sands by approximately 40%. Second, the small dimen-
face. Therefore, estimating the minimum required support pres- sion of the model yields negligible magnitude for the quantity
sure based on effective stress, is reasonable. of the gravitational force (i.e., cH = 0.91 kPa).
The value of rTC could have been inuenced by the boundary Although the centrifuge is better at scaling the parameters
conditions of the small scale experiment, but the consistency of involved in tunneling the method presented in this paper is less
the results with previous studies is re-assuring. In any case, the costly, and permits visualizing internal deformations without
results point to the importance of holding or increasing the face the use of sensors that may affect the measured deformations.
pressure above the value of rT/rV > 0.1 in order to stabilize the The technique can be employed with a centrifuge but with added
face and prevent progression of ground failure. difculty and cost. For the time being surface loading is employed
3. Failure Stage (rT/rV < 0.5ka): This stage represents total failure. as a means of increasing the effective stress. Surface loading has
Face collapsed when transparent soil slide into the tunnel and been successfully employed in the past with natural soils to over-
large displacements occurred without decreasing the support come model size effects in a variety of 1 g model tests.
pressure. Collapse occurs suddenly, with the soil owing into The study was performed at a low conning stress, so the effect
the tunnel, which leads to a collapse chimney developing in of dilation may have been over emphasized.
front of the tunnel face. It would be difcult to control failure The effect of the pore pressure was small due to the small size of
once collapse begins. the model which yields negligible magnitude for the quantity
(cuid H) where H is the depth to tunnel axis and cuid is the
7. Limits of the study unit weight of pore uid.
SG1 particle size (0.150.5 mm) is somewhat large for the tun-
Although it has been shown that tunneling process can be well nel diameter (25 mm) used in these test. The size effect of the
modeled by transparent soils, the use of the above-described pro- particles is probably relevant and may have been over
cedure has some limitations as follows: emphasized.
110 M. Ahmed, M. Iskander / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 27 (2012) 101110
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Acknowledgements Sadek, S., Iskander, M., Liu, J., 2003. Accuracy of digital image correlation for
measuring deformations in transparent media. ASCE Journal of Computing in
Civil Engineering 17 (2), 8896.
Transparent soils were originally developed with NSF support Sterpi, D., Cividini, A., Sakurai, S., Nishitake, S., 1996. Laboratory model tests and
under Grant No. CMS 9733064. Continued NSF support under Grants numerical analysis of shallow tunnels. In: Proc. Eurock 1996, Balkema, pp. 689
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Vinaia, R., Oggeria, C., Peila, D., 2008. Soil conditioning of sand for EPB applications:
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